Ireland Brexit Border Shenanigans. Steampunk at the National Space Centre.

The Irish border with Northern Ireland has become the new crunch point in the Brexit talks, prior to getting agreement from the EU to move on to the next stage of negotiating the trade arrangements with the EU during  and after Brexit.

The Ireland leader stated that they would block progress on the EU Brexit negotiations if the border issue is not resolved.

UK Secretary of State for International Trade, Dr Liam Fox, countered today that the Irish border issue won't be resolved until EU-UK trade deal struck.

 The EU's agriculture commissioner, Phil Hogan, thinks that if the UK stayed in the customs union, this would resolve the issue. Hardliners in the UK government would not accept this.

The Northern Ireland leader categorically rejects displacing the border between the UK mainland and the Irish island as this would cut Northern Ireland from the UK.

A scandal in Ireland may actually derail the Irish government, confusing the issue further.

We visited the National Space Centre in Leicester today, with S & L, a 90 mile drive. It was a special weekend including 'Steampunks in Space', which meant that the museum sported a fair proportion of visitors in Steampunk attire and a smattering of steampunk displays. Men with magnificent Victorian moustaches, glorious waistcoats and HG Well inspired jet packs were matched by women in corseted ruffled dresses with various levels of lace and military insignia of the female steampunk space contingent. Following on from the Victorian tradition of young children as chimney-sweeps, one gentleman was trailed by the steampunk equivalent of a smaller lad for cleaning minor rocket boosters and a taller one for larger nozzles. Among the displays was an impressive life-size steampunk reconstruction of a steam-powered R2D2 robot.

Despite wearing a fairly modest 6 inch badge proclaiming it was my birthday today, numerous eagle eyed people observed the fact. The best moment was when we were in the planetarium and the presenter asked if I was present, announcing it was my birthday and the audience broke out in singing Happy Birthday.

There was almost too much going on so we used the visit to familiarise ourselves with the displays, from the two full rockets standing in the Rocket hall, the Soyuz capsule and an early Gemini TTV-2 wheeled capsule for paragliding landings, the solar system and astronaut training displays, and the Europa Landing simulation.

A wonderful, if tiring, day out.